1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a brush that is attached to an interior surface within a vehicle in order to allow a person to be able to brush off his or her footwear prior to stepping into the vehicle.
2. Background of the Prior Art
For many people, a vehicle is the second largest investment they make, next to their homes. As a result, many vehicle owners take great pride in maintaining and caring for the vehicle in order to keep the vehicle in good running order as well as clean and tidy. One area of vehicle maintenance that provides a challenge to owners is the carpeting. The normal process of walking around outside causes dirt and mud to accumulate on a person's footwear. When the person steps into the vehicle, this dirt and mud comes off of the footwear and gets deposited on the interior carpeting of the vehicle. Many vehicle owners shake or otherwise bump their shoes prior to vehicle entry, however, such cleaning processes tend not to eliminate all of the accumulated dirt and mud, especially with modern intricately creviced shoe sole designs. Accordingly, some of the dirt and mud is brought into the vehicle which requires removal therefrom, typically via a vacuuming process. While regular vacuuming removes a substantial portion of such dirt and mud, vacuuming is a time-consuming and labor-intensive process so that vehicle owners perform such a task with less frequency than is called for by dirt and mud accumulation. Nevertheless, even with very frequent vacuuming, some of the dirt and mud gets ground into the carpeting such that this ground in dirt is removed, if possible, via shampooing or other intense cleaning method, which is more expensive and additionally time-consuming.
Devices have been proposed that help remove dirt and mud from the footwear of vehicle occupants, however, such devices have certain shortcomings. Many such prior art devices are in the form of scrapers that scrape the sole of a shoe or boot. Such scrapers are effective for removal of dirt and mud from the soles of shoes and boots that have generally smooth soles, but tend to be ineffective in removal of dirt and mud from soles that are patterned as well as from other parts of the boot or shoe. Additionally, many such devices are designed to be mounted on the running board of a vehicle, which running boards have fallen out of fashion on many vehicles over the decades.
To address these problems, footwear brushing systems have been proposed that brush footwear on both the sole of the footwear as well as other parts of the footwear. Such brushing systems are also more effective in patterned soles of modern shoes. However, such brushing systems tend to be relatively complex in design and construction so as to make such systems economically impractical to many would-be consumers of such systems.
What is needed is a footwear cleaning system that overcomes the above stated shortcomings found in the art. Specifically, such a footwear cleaning system must be able to effectively clean most of the portions of the outerwear of footwear as well as soles that have other than smooth surfaces. Such a system must be relatively simple in design and construction so as to be readily affordable to potential consumers of such products. Such a system must not rely on the availability of a running board for installation.